When i started to think them [the old milongueros] as a push-generation most of the contradictions disappeared for me. I think that they marked the beat by a push with the standing foot...

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Yes, this is an older thread, but, is this true? We, today, place our foot on the beat and back in the day they pushed on the beat?

Yesterday at a practica, we and another couple were discussing walking technique and concluded that, at least for us, when we step/push is a function of the music. D'Arienzo is very marchy, with very little/no arrastre, and it feels right to march along, generally landing on the beat. However, for music with significant arrastre (for example Fresedo's 1927 Lorenzo, or Sassone's 1959 Bar Exposicion), it feels much better to push on the beat and land whenever.

Don´t know if I got you? Do you mean that an arrastre makes you land on the beat, or rather makes you push off?
In general, I don´t think all milongueros danced the same way back then. The mastery of cadencia makes the difference, taday and back then.

I do both/either to most pieces, i think (and i often switch within one song) - it depends a lot on who i dance with and how i feel at the moment.

I think there are different tendencies depending on what people get taught in the beginning/local color, but most people who have danced for a bit tend to either be open to playing with this, or use this themselves. Sometimes beginners tend to either insist on one of them, or just follow without expressing their own musicality, but in my experience that is rare.

P.S. not sure if it is a good thing or a bad thing that my ideas about this have not changed all that much over the last 2 years

Don´t know if I got you? Do you mean that an arrastre makes you land on the beat, or rather makes you push off?

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When the music has a strong arrastre, I enjoy the feeling of movement through the arrastre and tend to push at the start of the "pharrump". The rhythm seems to flow. D'Arienzo seems, at least to me, rather choppy, doesn't flow, and I do tend to align my landings with the beat.